Little Fort Elementary School fourth-grader Tatiana Coletta is hoping for snow this winter.

The Waukegan girl received a donated purple-and-pink prosthetic arm Monday afternoon from her orchestra teacher, which will make playing the cello so much easier and opens up new possibilities for doing things she's never been able to do before.

"It's going to help me do a lot of things," she said. "I've actually never been able to build a snowman or play the cello that well. Well, I've been able to play the cello well, but it's going to make it a lot easier for me. There's a lot of stuff that I can do that now, with the arm, I can do a lot easier."

Her teacher, Jeanine Woodman, had begun looking into getting a prosthetic arm donated after seeing an article about another teacher who had a 3-D printed arm made for a student of his who played the drums.

Over the course of the summer, she did hours of research and ultimately found a group called Team UnLimbited, which provided customizable blueprints free of charge. An engineer in Chicago printed out all the parts.

The cost of materials and the printing ended up being about $200, which Bravo Waukegan covered, according to the nonprofit's executive director, Karey Walker. The group funds several music programs, including the district's mariachi bands; provides scholarships to children so they can attend music lessons; and has purchased instruments for individual children.

After working out the logistics and knowing that it was a real possibility, Woodman approached Tatiana and her parents, Teresa Pimentel and Brendan Coletta.

"I was excited," Pimentel said. "I was very emotional. I was actually a little nervous for her because she doesn't know any different and she's done very well her whole life. She was born without her arm. That's the only life she's known, and she's been able to do well with it. She's never really asked for a prosthetic."

But they saw the opportunities that the prosthetic would open up to Tatiana, such as giving her the ability to do things like riding a bike or tying her shoes, things she could not do before.

Eventually, about 50 parts arrived at Woodman's home, where she spent about 12 hours over two days watching YouTube videos, connecting the pieces and shaping the cuffs.

"Watching it go from all these little tiny pieces to an arm is pretty cool," Woodman said as she watched Tatiana repeatedly bend and unbend her new elbow. The movement triggers a pulley that closes the fingers of the hand.

Woodman, who moves among Carman-Buckner, Clark, Little Foot and McCall elementary schools in Waukegan School District 60, is in her second year teaching Tatiana, who started playing the cello in first grade.

Tatiana picked the cello because she liked the sound, not too high and not too low, she said.

"It was her idea," Pimentel said. "She came home from first grade and said, 'Mom, I want to do an instrument.' I said, 'OK, we'll figure it out.' And we did. The fact that she didn't have an arm was never something that was going to hold her back. She's approached life like that, with everything."

Because Tatiana doesn't have the lower part of her left arm, she has been playing the instrument backward, using her right hand on the fingerboard and strapping her bow to her left arm with a cloth bandage.

"It wasn't always successful," Woodman said. "She would have to crouch down, and it wasn't comfortable. With this arm, now she'll be able to sit with good posture. She'll be able to get a good bow hold."

But the impact will go well beyond the music room.

"I'm just happy for her," Pimentel said. "I've seen her struggle a lot through life. I just know this is going to make her life easier, and she deserves it. She approaches everything in life so eloquently and so positively, and to know that she can keep going and chasing her dreams and it's going to be that much easier for her, it's just a blessing."